If Germany was governed by capitalist rationality, then one glance at the
projected population pyramid -- not a pyramid, but an urn (1) -- would be
sufficient to make the case for an increase in immigration as an immediate
political priority. And if the German government was held to the standards of
international law, it would be evident that it's the systematic denial of
protection for political refugees which -- alone in 2015 in the Mediterranean
Sea, a border in whose maintenance Germany is heavily invested -- has cost
thousands their lives (2), and that the long-term internment of immigrants in
camps, as practiced in Germany today, is an obvious crime. But no such
standards apply, and it's not rationality that governs. Germany's head of state
is a pastor, nominated by Social Democrats and Greens, and this week, at the
height of yet another wave of attacks against foreigners (3, 4), he declared:
"There is a bright Germany that shines its light onto this dark Germany". But
he's a liar, or thinks he presides over Germany in the role of a cleric, guided
by superstition and wishful thinking rather than facts or empirical evidence.
Since Germany's reunification, right-wing extremists have murdered hundreds of
people -- 75 according to the Ministry of the Interior, 184 according to the
Amadeu Antonio Foundation, plus 849 potential cases listed by the Federal
Criminal Police (5) -- while police repression has almost exclusively targeted
their victims and opponents. This week's film program, as it chronicles the
pogroms that preceded the dismantling of the constitutional right of asylum in
1993, serves as a reminder that German authorities don't just ignore fascist
terror against minorities, but in fact tolerate and often actively support it.